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If you could turn back time, what would you do differently in your ceramic art life?

Check out joining the Potters Council ( www.potterscouncil.org ) for more networking possibilities, peer mentoring opportunities, discounts on books, magazines, and DVDs, health insurance, credit card merchant programs, and many other member benefits.

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If you could turn back time, what would you do differently in your ceramic art life?

Check out joining the Potters Council ( www.potterscouncil.org ) for more networking possibilities, peer mentoring opportunities, discounts on books, magazines, and DVDs, health insurance, credit card merchant programs, and many other member benefits.

I would have started it 30 years ago. I am 57 now and just starting out.

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Started thirty years earlier and gotten an MFA. Now that I live near Asheville, I am surrounded by fabulous potters who are very inspiring and helpful, but I must constantly remind myself to not compare my work with theirs.

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I was offered a ceramics teaching job at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario the day after I signed a contract to return to high school teaching. Thunder Bay had lots of sawmills, and I could have built a few wood kilns and fired a lot more pottery. I don't really have any other regrets. Maybe I should have married Myrna when I was 17 and she was 18, but I think she just wanted to get out of her parents' house.:lol:src="http://ceramicartsdaily.org/community/public/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif">

TJR.

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I have thought about this in the past but never came up with a definitive answer. My father didn't even believe women should go to high school so I had to work and pay my own way from the age of 16 and then he took half my pay for living at home. I went to college on some scholarships and part time for years before I finished. I often wondered if I could of worked harder, avoided marriage and children and had a more successful career in clay. I don't think I would change any thing I have a wonderful husband who supports me in every way and a son who thinks I can make anything out of clay.

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In 2010 when my career was 35 years old post graduate school, I was able to purchase my studio space. I would have thought about, and made an attempt to own my studio early on instead of leasing space.

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Maybe I would have benefited by starting earlier, but my life now is a distillation of all prior triumphs and defeats, as my art is a distillation of everything I learned and did in that chequered life. I really don't think a change would be beneficial, unless all that I've learned in life and art--to date--would still be a part of me. I am what I am.

Shirley

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I would have taken more Ceramics classes in college. I had a great instructor in the class I did take, but I wish I would have had more experience, especially considering, I have taught all the Ceramics class in every teaching job I've had.

There was a Glaze Calc. class, that would have been interesting, though they only accepted so many students, and I don't think I had enough experience, to take it. I also could, and should have taken the second Ceramics course my school offered. It would have been a different teacher, but I would have learned more. Instead, I took a Life Drawing class, because one of my friends talked me into it. It ended up being my worse art grade, and college grade overall, because, apparently, the instructor thought disappearing from the class every five minutes, qualified as teaching, and offering feedback.

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If you could turn back time, what would you do differently in your ceramic art life?

Check out joining the Potters Council ( www.potterscouncil.org ) for more networking possibilities, peer mentoring opportunities, discounts on books, magazines, and DVDs, health insurance, credit card merchant programs, and many other member benefits.

I might have gotten that MFA, but at the time, raising a family, residency requirements and all. Probably not. Otherwise, I had a great time teaching ceramics, and have a comfortable retirement with a great wife.

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I'm with you on that one, people are always asking me why I didn't build a bigger studio and I tell them it would be just as full. Denice

Dear All,

I think in many ways it is like having a big house. While I dream of an even bigger studio in the same way I would love a bigger house--who would clean it?? And then there is the repeated organization we all do in trying to utilize the space we have. Perhaps having it smaller is best. I work on the premiss of get it done and get it out and living somewhere else to keep on top of collecting to much stuff. It helps.

Know that if there was a service in my town that offered studio cleaning once per week for a really cheap rate, I would be the first one at the door. While I try to be really meticulous in my cleaning, it seems it could always be a little better. I like working in an area where my lungs do not have the potential to be overly exposed to dry clay. Even though I wet mop regularly, dry clay is still in our studio environment. And maybe more windows in the studio would be helpful as well. And a hepa filter overhead.

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I am a young one in this crowd, being only 27, but I will say even now I look back and would have things different. I found my love for clay in highschool but wasted a lot of time in college not being focused. I would definitely have changed that. I didnt have the best of professors my first go around in college (she was a crazy alcoholic) and if I would have known the other Ceramics Prof was amazing I would have ensured I was in her class. I would change the amount of time I spent outside the glaze room and from monitoring firings. I cant imagine how much more advanced I would be right now if I would of had focus the past ten years. Yet I will say that even though Im not where I would want to be experience wise in ceramics I am kinda thankful for my past. Ive always been a dabbler and even though my focus sucked I still had great curiosity to try new things and if I actually was focused on clay I would probably have never dabbled in wood working, metallurgy, silk screening, painting etc. Now I enjoy having many avenues of creativity, not a master of any, but still feel I have the talent required to take them on.